This
pipe dumps raw sewage into the Ganges near a
religious bathing area. The laundry drying on the
steps has been washed in the river water near the
outfall pipe.

Each morning Veer Bhadra Mishra, mahant or head of the
Sankat Mochan Temple, takes a holy dip in the Ganges, the
"Mother of India" that flows through the holy city of
Varanasi.

Yet as professor of civil engineering at Banaras Hindu
University, he knows that something is not right with the
river -- that he and the 60,000 other Hindus who bathe in
and drink its waters each day risk serious illness.

Raw sewage dumps into the Ganges at many points as it
winds along the city. The river's fecal bacteria levels far
exceed what is considered safe for swimming, let alone
drinking. In addition, partially cremated bodies are
launched into the river daily from funeral pyres along the
ghats (steps) that line the bank.

Last week Mishra visited campus to discuss a solution he
has proposed to save the river, and to praise environmental
engineers William Oswald and Bailey Green, whose simple
wastewater treatment technology he hopes to adopt.

Dressed in a handsome brown and beigedhoti, the
59-year-old Mishra laid out the problem during the Energy
and Resource Group Colloquium in Sibley Auditorium. He
bemoaned India's bureacracy for obstructing efforts he began
in 1982, when he started a foundation to publicize the
problem and to urge the government to take action.

Since then the government has wasted more than $100
million on failed projects: sewage treatment plants that
shut down when the electricity fails -- a frequent
occurrence -- and sewage pumping stations that can handle
only part of the daily sewage effluent, and which also stop
during electrical outages.

In 1994 Mishra, an hydraulic engineer, happened upon a
solution that Oswald developed and has been promoting for
decades. Called Advanced Integrated Wastewater Pond Systems
(AIWPS), these natural systems consist of a series of ponds
that use algae to oxygenate the water so that common
bacteria can break down and disinfect the waste. No sludge
remains for disposal and energy is not wasted in mechanical
aeration.

Together Mishra, Oswald and Green developed a proposal
for creating an AIWPS facility downstream of Varanasi, plus
an interceptor sewer paralleling the Ganges to channel waste
directly to the plant. Berkeley geologist James Kirchner
even visited the river to make sure the ponds would not
alter the Ganges' course. The outflow from the pond would be
a million-fold cleaner than the water today, fit for the
"holy dip" so important to devout Hindus.

Despite Mishra's enthusiasm, the government has yet to
abandon the failed activated sludge plants in favor of
low-tech ponds. He hopes international pressure will help. A
lengthy article about the project in The New Yorker magazine
in January has already started people talking, he said.

The local population is eager, though, especially
villagers downstream near the planned site of the
stabilization ponds.

"Such a welcome the people gave Dr. Green and Professor
Oswald when they visited the village," Mishra laughed. "They
filled them with garlands."

Mishra's blend of culture, tradition and faith with
science and technology could be what ultimately saves the
Ganges.

"There is a saying that the Ganges grants us salvation,"
Mishra said. "This culture will end if the people stop going
to the river, and if the culture dies the tradition dies,
and the faith dies."